President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to push TikTok's sale deadline for the third time this year.
Why it matters: Trump's repeated delays on the ban have begun to tick off some Senate Republicans, more than a year after a bipartisan law was passed out of serious concerns for the app's threats to national security.
In an era of hyper-personalized feeds and hyper-engaged micro-communities, consumer brands that go niche will break through, Robyn Delmonte, creator and creative director behind GirlBossTown, told Axios at an event alongside Cannes Lions.
Why it matters: The approach bucks decades of conventional wisdom that scale and mass appeal are the fastest route to growth.
Publishers face an existential threat in the AI era and need to take action to make sure they are fairly compensated for their content, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Axios at an event in Cannes on Thursday.
Why it matters: Search traffic referrals have plummeted as people increasingly rely on AI summaries to answer their queries, forcing many publishers to reevaluate their business models.
Two genealogy sites are adding troves of historical materials about enslaved people in the U.S. to databases, which could give many of their descendants a fuller picture of their families' histories.
The moves come as the nation on Thursday celebrates Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the end of slavery.
Why it matters: In recent years, descendants of enslaved people have gained unprecedented access to collections of long-lost family records online — made possible by advances in technology, AI, and DNA testing.
Online learners are turning to Substack communities, Zoom classes or even AI chatbots that can generate personalized syllabi.
The big picture: We're seeing the rise of AI doing the critical thinking for us, despite its often generic output. Plus, we know learning new things is one of the most effective tools we have to stave off dementia in an aging population.
Despite a reprieve from President Trump, TikTok's fate still hangs in the balance — unless a potential buyer emerges.
The big picture: Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office delaying the app's ban by 75 days, effectively resurrecting it hours after the platform had gone dark.
OpenAI cautioned Wednesday that upcoming models will head into a higher level of risk when it comes to the creation of biological weapons — especially by those who don't really understand what they're doing.
Why it matters: The company, and society at large, need to be prepared for a future where amateurs can more readily graduate from simple garage weapons to sophisticated agents.
Northrop Grumman is collaborating with at least four other companies to more-quickly test and deliver autonomy under a previously undisclosed initiative dubbed Beacon.
Why it matters: "There are a lot of new companies, particularly in the AI space and the autonomy space, that are out there doing a lot of very interesting things," Tom Jones, the president of Northrop's aeronautics systems sector, told Axios at the Paris Air Show.
"There's been this idea that with some of these small companies — these new entrants — it's 'us versus them.' It's an 'either or,'" he added. "I don't think it is."
After years of secretive development, the U.S. Air Force last week provided its first look at a nuclear cruise missile expected to be wielded by B-52 bombers.
Why it matters: Imagery like this is not shared carelessly.
Business Insider's recent layoffs and changes were "very difficult" but necessary to put the business back on track, CEO Barbara Peng said at an Axios event at Cannes on Wednesday.
"We have a responsibility to build a sustainable business. If we can't support ourselves, we actually can't do all the good journalism that we want to and really reach that potential," she said.
Why it matters: Publishers are reckoning with declining search traffic across the media industry and reinvesting as they prepare for potentially even greater disruption from AI.
The early days of this year's Paris Air Show brimmed with news, from aircraft purchases to factory floor expansions to missile unveilings.
Why it matters: The show is among the world's most prestigious. It's where buyers and sellers go to cut deals — and it's where militaries go to flex hardware.
Here are the latest headlines:
Anduril Industries and Rheinmetall revealed a new partnership through which European variants of the Barracuda missile and Fury robo-wingman will be produced. Solid rocket motors are also on the table.
Boeingofficials said the company can "absolutely" handle the U.S. Air Force's F-47 and the U.S. Navy's to-be-awarded F/A-XX at the same time, should it win the latter contract.
Honeywell and Near Earth Autonomy revealed they completed the first autonomous test flight of a Leonardo AW139 helicopter. It happened in May in Phoenix.
General Atomics unveiled Pele, a semiautonomous 9-foot launched effect optimized for use aboard the company's MQ-9B SkyGuardian. Pele can fly for seven hours and has a 500-nautical-mile range.
Portal Space Systems announced it will open a 50,000-square-foot spacecraft manufacturing facility in Bothell, Washington. It will be just 3 miles from the company's existing design-and-testing hub.
Portugalagreed to buya sixth KC-390 Millennium aircraft from Embraer. Lisbon previously said it would buy five. It can be used for cargo transport, evacuation and refueling missions.
MBDArolled out what it's calling "one-way effector" — a relatively cheap drone meant to drain enemy air defenses and coffers. The company said the weapon combines expertise in cruise missiles and remote-controlled munitions.
Pratt & Whitney, a part of RTX, will supply TJ150 engines for the Small Cruise Missile, also known as Black Arrow. The arrangement kicked off in April and will run through the first quarter of fiscal 2026.
Ursa Major secured a nearly $33 million contract to develop and deliver to Stratolaunch 16 upgraded Hadley H13 engines. Hadleys have powered multiple Talon-A missions at speeds greater than Mach 5.
Kratossaid it will open a facility in Bristow, Oklahoma, to produce its GEK (GE Aerospace-Kratos) line of turbojet engines. The plant will include three small-engine test cells; they are expected to be operational in 2027.
Helsing and Saab completed three Gripen E flights with artificial intelligence, dubbed Centaur, at the controls. Flights happened in May and June.
Archer, an air-taxi maker, raised $850 million, its largest round to date.
AI can generate a larger volume of creative ideas than any human, but those ideas are too much alike, according to research newly published in Nature Human Behaviour.
Why it matters: AI makers say their tools are "great for brainstorming," but experts find that chatbots produce a morelimited range of ideas than a group of humans.
